Chapter 25 - Instability (CitC)
GB lingered on the handle. Tubba could hear his tentacles running over the lever, making popping sounds as the suckers connected and then disconnected. He felt his his head continue to be thrust upward, as Rosalina began to realize the decision GB was closer to making. Looking up the pale white roof of the engine room, he made his peace with the Stars. "You really want him to die?" Rosalina asked, disbelievingly. Tubba thought he felt her wand drop a little, making him fall that little bit in the air. "Of course not." GB responded, his voice surprisingly steady and unwavering. "He's one of my friends. I won't pull the lever." Tubba heard the telltale sign of GB walking away from the lever. "NO, GB!" Tubba roared, "PULL IT! SHE KNOWS YOU'LL TAKE THIS OPTION! PULL IT!" Tubba knew that Rosalina would crack his skull out of spite if GB pulled the lever. But the Star Princess had been counting on GB's loyalty to his friend to keep him away from pulling the last lever of the Beacon. Deep down, Tubba felt pity for Rosalina. All she saw was Bowser attempting to take her Power Stars from the Comet Observatory in an attempt to take over the Mushroom World again. She didn't know that it was Ludwig in the Super Bowser Doomship, nor that the Koopa Kingdom was doing this for self defence. But pity was a difficult feeling to have to someone about to crack his skull, and who jerked his head in the air even harder once he roared his orders at GB. Suddenly, Tubba felt himself falling through the air. Before he could come to terms with what was happening, he landed heavily, belly first, on the grill foor on the engine room, cracking it slightly. To his left was GB, his tentacles resolutely away from the lever, looking shocked at what was happening in the doorway. Following his gaze, Tubba saw that Rosalina's attention had been diverted by a certain Iglator who was standing in the entrance to the engine room, eyes alight with the fire of battle, a wand with a glowing blue tip in his right hand, hair windswept behind his fully grown horns. Ludwig had come to the battle. Rosalina had instantly pointed her wand at him, thus dropping Tubba from the air. The Koopaling stood there, a distinctly bored expression on his face contradicting the fire in his eyes, unwavered by the wand pointed at him. "I don't think we've met?" Rosalina's high voice echoed around the room, as casually as if she was having a discussion with a friend. Tubba silently picked himself off the floor, exchanging a glance with GB. Together, the two of them saw the last unpulled lever with Rosalina's back to them. Silently, the two battlers began walking back to the lever. Behind them, Ludwig responded to Rosalina's question: "Vee have not. I am Ludwig von Koopa, zee heir to zee Koopa Kingdom." The battlers reached the lever, Rosalina's back still to them. Before they could pull it, Rosalina turned around, shooting a jet of silver light toward the two battlers who had just placed their hands on the lever. Seeing the light race toward them, Tubba braced his arm in front of his face, prepared for a heavy impact and a likely explosion. But instead of the silver light contacting the scales on Tubba's right forearm, a dark blue Magic Blast, blazing through the air not unlike a comet, intercepted the light. When the two spells met in midair, they exploded, showering Tubba's arm with sparks. Ignoring his scales singeing, Tubba yanked the lever downward as Ludwig began to battle with Rosalina a few steps away. It didn't budge. Shock racing through him, Tubba saw that Rosalina had pointed her wand at the lever after knocking Ludwig aside with her wand, preventing it from going down. The eldest Koopaling shrugged off the brief blow he had taken, and fired yet another Magic Blast at Rosalina. With a jerk of her star-adorned wand, the floor of the engine room began to dip at an alarming rate, making both Tubba's fingers and GB's tentacles slip from the lever, as well as allow the Magic Blast to just skim her hair. Holding the wand by the tips of her fingers, Rosalina fired shot after shot at Ludwig, who stood his ground, deflecting each of them with a deft flick of his own. Tubba, absorbed in the battle, barely noticed GB beside him desperately trying to leap up to the lever receding beyond his reach as the floor descended farther. Ludwig fought off every attack Rosalina had, before firing his own. Similarly, Rosalina, who was regarded quite highly by Ludwig, defused each Magic Blast before it even came close to her, with a shining silver shield. "Tubba!" GB cried beside him, springing off his tentacles in a pathetic attempt at a jump. The floor beside them gave a thud as it settled in a new place, the lever now over twenty feet above their heads."I need your help!" Horrified, Tubba realized that he had not been attempting to pull the lever despite Ludwig buying them time in his battle against Rosalina. Grabbing the relatively smaller GB, he threw the Blooper in the air at a desperate attempt to get to the lever. Rosalina and Ludwig continued their battle, circling each other and attempting to enchant each other, whether it be make the opponent fly in the air by their neck, or make the opponent feel like they were battling on ice. Every attempt at an attack was defused by the other, neither able to make a crucial blow. "Tubba!" GB slapped Tubba in the face with a tentacle. "Listen to me! If you lift your club up and I jump off it, I can reach that lever!" Tubba looked up. GB was right. They would be able to get quite close if he did that. Not wasting another moment watching Ludwig fire another blocked Magic Blast at Rosalina, Tubba pressed his belly up against the wall, lifting his club up as he did so. The telltale sign of tentacles slithering across his shell and up his right arm showed that GB was beginning to make the climb up. GB reached the top of the club, balancing on his two bottommost tentacles, and began to stretch desperately upward. His topmost tentacles were grasping the thin air just below the lever. At the same moment GB decided to leap, Rosalina turned and fired a jet of silver light at Tubba's club. Before he could do anything, the light contacted his club in a mini explosion. Splinters flew everywhere, a few harmlessly bouncing off Tubba's scales. Feeling the weight of GB suddenly leave his club, Tubba watched with shock as he pulled his club back, only to find that he was holding a useless wooden handle, with tattered splinters at the top. Beside him lay the other half of the club, including the dangerous part, lay beside him, splinters at it's base. High above him, GB dangled by one tentacle on the lever, his others dangling into empty air, punctured by splinters. Rosalina pointed her wand at GB, Ludwig lying by her side, his face on the floor in a puddle of his own blood. GB, seemingly unaware of the danger he was in, desperately reached another tentacle up to the lever. GB's weight wasn't enough to pull the lever yet, he would have to get on top of it and push down. Tubba looked around desperately for a means to stop Rosalina hitting GB, but all he was holding was a useless stick. Behind Rosalina, Ludwig moved. His nose was askew and still pouring blood, and his hair was unusually clumped together by dried blood, but the Koopaling's eyes were alert and aware. Ludwig sent Rosalina's wand flying into the corner with a deft flick of his own, then sent a Magic Blast at the Princess. At the same time, GB clambered on top of the lever, and pushed all his weight downward. The effect was instantenous. At the same time Rosalina was sent flying towards the walls of the room, the engine room was shrouded in complete darkness, with the only light being the light from the lower levels through the grill at their feet, and a pinprick of light that was the entrance to the dome far above their heads. After a few seconds of confusion, Ludwig's wand issued a deep, blue light that allowed the dome to become visible again, albeit in a deep, eerie, blue-black light. Ludwig himself looked ragged and weary, his nose still bleeding. Rosalina lay knocked out against the wall, and GB fell from the lever onto Tubba's shell. Tubba, still holding the stick that was his club, cast a questioning glance at Ludwig. The eldest Koopaling apparently knew what Tubba was asking without words, and pointed his wand at the crack Tubba had created in the floor. A Magic Blast erupted from his wand, hitting the grill on the floor and sending shrapnel flying everywhere. Tubba shrugged off shrapnel digging itself into his lower belly, waiting anxiously for the smoke to clear. They had a limited time to get out, before the magical enchantments around the Comet Observatory fell. When the smoke cleared around the area, a hole big enough for even Tubba to squeeze through had been created. Ludwig gestured weakly at the hole, still not speaking. Tubba had never seen the eldest Koopaling so tired, but he assumed that an intense magic battle would take a lot out of him. GB went first, hurling himself through the grill. The lower levels' lights were slowly turning off, but Tubba could tell that the engine room's floor had sunk so much so that they were barely five feet off the ground. Tubba went next, and Ludwig soon followed him. The three of them landed heavily on the grass part of the Observatory, next to the green dome, in an area completely shrouded in darkness. In the sky above them, the Super Bowser Doomship, true to Ludwig's word, was making a pass next to the Observatory. Tubba saw the dark blue shape of Gonzales leap to the Doomship from an area around the red dome, and as the Doomship approached where Ludwig, Tubba and GB were, more shapes that resembled Dibby, Blizzerd and Clubbette leapt on board. As the Doomship approached them, Tubba leapt in the air, feeling the gravity of the massive ship draw him in. After a few rounds around the Doomship, the three of them were roughly thrown into the hull of ship, nearly landing on the other battlers. Behind them, two Koopatrols closed the metal doors that led to the Comet Observatory, shrouding it from view. While the battlers who had entered prior had picked themselves off the floor, Ludwig, Gonzales and Tubba lay on their back, staring up at the ceiling. "You know, I can't believe zat actually vorked."